How many recordings
of Beach’s big 1896 Violin Sonata do
you know? There are Silverstein and
Kalisch on New World, Pascal and Polk
on Arabesque, Johnson and Kairoff on
Albany, the Pontremolis on Centaur,
Macomber and Walsh on Classics and Delmoni
and Funahashi on JMR. And now we can
add Gabrielle Lester and Diana Ambache,
members of the pianist’s eponymous ensemble,
in this October 2002 recording. This
was a work premiered by the composer
and the irascible violinist Franz Kneisel,
famed and feared teacher, leader of
the Boston Orchestra, and whose own
quartet was the most prestigious such
ensemble in America. It was taken up
by Ysaÿe and Pugno who gave it
at least one performance in Paris, in
1900. Cast in four movements and lasting
half an hour this is an engaging, personal
sonata that never quite works. The opening
movement is full of gentle lyricism,
though the material is over-stretched
and the Scherzo has capricious little
rhythmic moments and a piu lento section
that delves into more reflective, wandering
lines. Marked con dolore the
piano opens the Largo with pronounced
nobility of utterance and there is increasing
turbulence alongside the intense and
soaring cantilena and playing in alt
even if Beach does once again stretch
her line. The driving, late Romantic
finale is enjoyable with ingrained lyrical
reminiscences of earlier themes and
a three voiced fugue, which itself reminds
one of the fugal section in the first
movement. However daintily it’s done
it does sound – albeit attractively
– contrived. Lester is a very expressive
player and commendably explores the
turbulence and most especially the melodic
contours of the Sonata. But there are
some lapses in intonation and I’d also
rather she’d been more dashing and less
diffuse (often Beach’s fault) in the
finale; it’s marked con fuoco when
it opens, after all.

The Quartet was only
published after Beach’s death. Begun
in 1921 it was completed in 1929 in
Rome. She uses Alaskan Inuit songs –
as she had before in her 1907 piece
Eskimos (in the days when an
Eskimo was an Eskimo). This is an intensely
contrapuntal work with a keening, intimate
texture, in one movement though fairly
clearly sub-divided into three sections
with a final recapitulation. It’s full
of unison sway with a slightly austere
profile, enriched by tremolandi, a fugato
section (disappointingly conventional,
this, in a work of this kind) and a
soaring first violin part over a springy
accompaniment. The Pastorale for woodwind
is wistful, languorous and summery and
less than four minutes long. And Dreaming
is a Beach transcription for cello
and piano of a solo piano piece – a
lyrical effusion, Francophile in leaning
though perhaps slightly heavier than
that implies.

Though this is an attractively
presented disc, neither the Sonata (see
above for rivals) nor the Quartet is
a novelty - in recent years both the
Crescent and Lark Quartets have recorded
it. The generous recorded sound is a
definite bonus and the programme sufficiently
enjoyable to tempt.

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